Isaiah 1

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” (v11). Isaiah prophesied in the 8th century BC, when God’s people were being threatened by the Assyrian empire. They were vulnerable because they had rebelled against God and rejected His ways (v2), and Isaiah declared that God didn’t want their worship without repentance (v13). Instead of empty “solemn assemblies” (worship events), “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause” (v17).

“Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (v18). When we give up self-righteousness, turn to Him in repentance, and desire to live differently in the world, God is quick to forgive and heal us.